Follow The Leader
by Megget18
Summary: It's been two weeks since Clarke left Camp Jaha and Bellamy is going crazy. Fed up with the council's leadership and worried that his people are on the brink of war, he goes in search of the one person he considers their true leader. He will do his best to bring her home, but he's willing to follow wherever she leads, even if that means they never return. Post Season 2/Bellarke.
1. Chapter 1

**Follow the Leader**

* * *

 _Author's Note: Hey guys, I know The 100 season 3 is premiering soon (in the US) and I am super excited, but by the looks of the trailer it doesn't seem like there will be too much Bellarke this season. Since they are my favorite ship, I wanted to write a shorter story about my favorite pair and what happened to them after the season two finale in my head. I hope you enjoy!  
_

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The 100._**

* * *

Chapter 1

"This is bullshit," Bellamy Blake cursed as he exited the war room. He stormed away quickly, not waiting for Raven to catch up as she followed him.

"Slow down, will ya?" she shouted at his back as she hobbled toward his tent. Between her bum leg and her recent injuries at Mount Weather, it was a minor miracle that she could still walk at all. It took a monumental effort to run after him.

Bellamy didn't pay her any mind. He didn't care if she followed him or not, he just needed to get away from that room and those idiots who called themselves their leaders.

He shoved the flaps of his tent aside and entered to find Octavia and Lincoln huddled inside. Thankfully it looked like they were just talking.

"What happened?" Octavia asked the second she saw the look of fury on his face.

"They want to wage war with the grounders." Bellamy responded.

Lincoln tensed. He still felt a strong connection to many grounders and he didn't want to see them hurt.

Bellamy continued, "They want to take a page from the mountain men and drop a bomb on Lexa." He started rummaging through his belongings and stuffing the useful supplies into a worn backpack.

Raven finally crowded into the tent behind Bellamy and settled him with a glare for making her chase him.

"They want to bomb the grounders?" Octavia repeated Bellamy's statement as a question. She couldn't believe that. Not after the wreckage and destruction that they had all seen in the aftermath of Tondc.

"Yes, as a pre-emptive strike." Raven clarified.

"Apparently we've learned nothing from how the earth was destroyed the first time around and they want to give it another go." Bellamy's sarcasm came out as a raspy grumble, but Octavia managed to catch the words.

"Why?" Octavia directed the question at Raven, knowing the wrench monkey would be more like to give her a straight answer than her angry brother would.

"Our scouts have been keeping track over the last couple of weeks and the grounder armies are surrounding the camp. They're moving slowly, but they're getting closer and closer. Kane is worried that Lexa is moving in to take over the camp, which would leave a lot of our people dead." Raven looked to Lincoln. "They think she wants to take us out while we're still weak so that we don't have a chance to retaliate for her betrayal."

Lincoln nodded. "It's something she might do," he confirmed.

"And the Chancellor thinks a bomb is the best way to deal with this?" Octavia asked, watching Bellamy tear through his room out of the corner of her eye.

"Abby is hesitant, but she's feeling the pressure from the other members of the council and doesn't have a better plan."

Bellamy scoffed and then pushed past Raven and out of his tent.

"Seriously?" Raven shouted, annoyed that she needed to chase after him again. Couldn't he sit quietly and stew with anger instead of traipsing about?

Octavia leapt to her feet and ran after her brother. "Bell, what are you doing?" she asked when she reached his side.

Some of the other people in the camp began to stare as Bellamy stormed through, interrupting their work as he collected any necessary supplies and threw them into his bag.

"I'm leaving," he told Octavia.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Bellamy turned to face his sister so that she could see the serious look in his eyes. "To find the only person around here who should actually be leading our people."

Octavia sighed. "You don't know that Clarke would do any differently than her mom."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Unless she's changed drastically in the two weeks since she left, I know she would find another way." He turned his back to his sister and made his way to the small break in the camp's fence.

"Maybe she has, Bell. We've all changed a lot since we've been here. I know two months ago you wouldn't have even thought about going after Clarke once."

"It doesn't matter, O. I'm going."

He got to the opening in the fence to find Raven and Lincoln already waiting there for him. Apparently his intention to go after Clarke had been obvious to Raven.

"What if she doesn't come back with you?" Octavia posed the question from behind him.

He stopped walking. He didn't want to consider the possibility. "I have to try," he said with a shrug. He continued forward again.

"I'm coming with you," Raven told him as he approached her.

"Don't be stupid," he replied.

"I'm not. I can help you."

Bellamy tapped his foot against her leg brace and shook his head. "All you'll do is slow me down."

Raven gritted her teeth, hating the fact that he was right.

"Well, I'm not letting you go alone." Octavia said. "And I'm a better tracker than you," she added like he had no choice but to take her for that reason.

"I'm going alone," he countered. Before Octavia could protest, he cut off her words. "You need to be here, O. I need you and Raven to do whatever you can to stall the council until I get back." Lincoln stepped forward to offer his assistance. "And no, Lincoln needs to stay here in case the grounders make a move. You know more about their battle strategy than anyone and the camp might need you if the grounders decide to try to talk things out."

Raven and Lincoln's silence was enough to tell him that they agreed. Octavia was a different story.

Bellamy placed his hands on his sister's shoulders. "I'll be fine. I promise." Octavia refused to look him in the eye. "I think this is more of a one on one conversation between me and Clarke anyway. Too many people might spook her."

She finally met his eyes. "If you get her back, are you going to be less moody?"

"What?"

"Ever since she left, you've been even moodier than usual. It's driven you crazy and you've driven us crazy," she explained.

Bellamy looked back at Raven to find her smirking and nodding in confirmation. He turned back to his sister. "Shut up," he told her and then pulled her into a tight hug. She squeezed him back.

He gave Lincoln a quick nod and let Raven clap him on the back. "Go get our girl," she ordered before handing him a few extra things that she had picked up for him around camp. He took them gratefully.

He gave one last look to Camp Jaha and his three unlikely allies and then disappeared throughout the fence without another word of goodbye.

* * *

Bellamy hadn't gotten very far from Camp Jaha when he realized that he didn't really have a plan for finding Clarke. He had been so focused on the idea that he could get her home that he hadn't thought about how he would find her first.

She had been gone for two weeks and any trail she had left behind would be ice cold. Bellamy's first thought was the she would go to the grounders. That maybe she would want Lexa to answer for her betrayal. He brushed off the idea. Clarke wasn't prone toward revenge. She didn't want to see anymore death or pain. And any excuses Lexa had for her betrayal wouldn't give Clarke closure from what she had done to those in Level 5. It wouldn't change anything. Lexa had chosen her people over the 48 just as Clarke had chosen her people over those in Level 5.

Lost in thought, Bellamy finally focused enough to realize where his feet were headed. He was moving toward the drop ship. It was unintentional. A habitual instinct had kicked in to take him to the first place he knew on the ground. But the drop ship was as good a place as any to start the search. Clarke may have run to someplace familiar to her. It would be safest.

It didn't take much time for Bellamy to arrive. He was disappointed to find that it was empty. There were no signs of anyone living among the abandoned quarters.

It was an eerie place to wander through alone. The empty camp felt haunted with the remnants of the life that the 100 had built up and the destroyed war zone that they had left behind.

Bellamy walked through every place in the drop ship borders. He brushed his fingers across the message that Abby had left for Clarke so long ago, wishing Clarke had done the same for him. She had to have known that he would come for her eventually. It would have been helpful for her to leave him a note.

It wasn't until he came across the graveyard that he felt something was different. He hadn't actually expected to find anything there—he merely wanted to bow his head for a moment to respect those they had lost. It was the least he could do for Atom and Charlotte. But something caught his eye. A small cluster of white flowers lay starkly upon one of the older graves. The grave belonged to Wells and the flowers were very fresh.

Clarke had been here.

Any fresh footsteps had been kicked clean, leaving no trail to follow her back to her camp, however if she was close by then Bellamy had an idea of where she might be staying. He did his best to remember the path and soon recognized the signs that the route had been used many times. Low hanging branches had been snapped away, the grass and leaves on the forest floor had been worn down in the same spot as though it had been climbed over repeatedly.

As Bellamy made his way through the woods he tried to remember what Finn had called the bunker once. The name drove him crazy as it sat on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach. He finally made it to the small fortress to find that a small clearing had been made just around the hatch, enough room to safely build a controlled fire to cook meals. It wasn't until he approached the hatch door to find it sealed shut that he remembered its nickname: The Art Supply Store.

Bellamy wasn't exactly sure what to do. He needed to rest so he sat down on a nearby rock and took a deep breath, Now that he was here, he wasn't so sure Clarke would have taken refuge here—at least not for long. He stared to the left of the clearing in the direction of the shallow grave that he and Finn had dug for Delano, the grounder that Finn had tortured and killed. He noticed that _this_ grave was free of flowers. He cringed, imagining Clarke alone, scrubbing at the pool of Delano's dried blood to remove the stain from the floor of the bunker. Maybe this place held too many memories—both bad and good—that Clarke would prefer to forget.

Then again, he could imagine the princess torturing herself with the memories on purpose. They were a reminder of why she thought she was better off alone.

Either way, Bellamy knew he had to knock on the door and see if she was here eventually, but he was stalling. Now that it was possible that he had found her, he realized he had no idea what he planned to say. After all, he couldn't get her to stay at Camp Jaha in the first place. What made him think that he could actually get her to come back with him?

Bellamy sighed and pushed himself off the rock. He turned toward the metal entrance and just stared at it, contemplating if he should actually knock or just let himself in. He rested his hand on the latch, ready to open it. If he knocked, he wasn't actually sure she would want to let him in, but if he went in without warning he risked unintentionally startling her.

His deliberation between the two options was interrupted by a rustle of branches behind him. He swung around quickly, prepared for a grounder attack, but was instead greeting by the sight of his favorite blonde. She stopped when she noticed him standing at her doorstep. She blinked hard as though to make sure she wasn't imagining him. She had firewood tucked under one arm and a basket with an assortment of picked berries hanging off the other. She looked beautiful as always, with her hair pulled back in a loose braid similar to how she wore it when he first saw her. Her eyes were tired, rimmed with dark circles, and she was thinner than Bellamy preferred. It didn't matter though. It wasn't until he saw her that he realized how much worry had been eating away at him since she left. The sick pit of anxiety that had been hollowing him out from the inside shriveled away from the sight of her before him. She was safe and clean and alive.

He should have known all along. Clarke had always been a survivor.

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut again and Bellamy took a tentative step toward her. Maybe she wasn't okay.

"Are you real?"

He paused and then smirked. "Why? Have you been dreaming about me, princess?"

She shook her head. "Yea, it's really you," she said with a sigh and then walked past him to set down her bounty from a morning of gathering natural supplies in the forest. She turned back to face Bellamy and he noticed that she had strategically placed herself between him and the door.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, leveling him with a stern stare that he had come to miss.

"I came to find you," he told her with another step forward to which she held up a hand to stop him.

"I'm not going back with you," she said, skipping forward to answer the question he hadn't had a chance to ask yet.

It wasn't the answer he wanted.

But he grinned through his disappointment as he replied, "Well then, it looks like you have a new roommate."

* * *

 _Please review if you have a chance! Thanks!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Follow the Leader**

* * *

 _Author's Note: Hey guys, I hoped you enjoyed the first chapter. If there wasn't enough of Bellamy and Clarke interaction in it for you, this one has a lot more of that so I hope you enjoy!  
_

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The 100._**

* * *

Chapter Two

"Bellamy, you can't stay here." Clarke protested his absurd idea.

"That's not very nice. Living in isolation has really been a blow to your manners," Bellamy said. He was trying to keep things light for now. She had to actually let him talk to her before he could convince her to come home.

"I'm serious," she replied.

He nodded. "Can I at least get a proper hello before we get into this?"

She crossed her arms across her chest in silent refusal.

The gesture honestly stung Bellamy quite a bit, but he tried not to let it show. They had parted on good terms with a hug and a kiss on his cheek. He had expected some hesitation, but not such a cold welcome. When she told him she hoped they'd meet again, he guessed that she didn't mean for it to happen so soon.

"Should I take this to mean that you haven't missed me at all?" he asked, fishing for a little sign that she was at the very least as happy to see that he was alive and well as he was to discover the same about her.

She clenched her jaw and looked down at her feet. "I miss everyone," she admitted, folding her arms so that they weren't just held in front of her anymore but so that it looked like she was hugging herself. "Except maybe Murphy," she added and shot him a smile.

"We miss you too," he responded softly, careful not to say 'I' instead of 'we'. He moved so that he was standing directly in front of her.

He tentatively reached a hand out to touch her arm and was bolstered when she didn't flinch away. "It's good to see you, Clarke," he told her sincerely.

She met his eyes and gave him a small smile. "It's good to see you, Bellamy," she agreed. And then she gave him the greeting that he hadn't realized he'd been hoping for.

She unfolded her arms from her body and wrapped them around him for an incredibly tight hug. He returned it in kind, clinging to her and the fact that she was finally here with him again. He could feel her hands pressing into his back as though she was trying to remember every detail of how he felt and definitively confirm he was here. He understood the urge. He was inclined to do the same, but he didn't have to. The way her body pressed flush against his left no doubt that this was real. It was not another restless dream. There was an indescribable magnetism that he felt every time they touched. He never got that in his dreams—or with anyone else in real life for that matter. No one hugged like Clarke Griffin. And it always felt wrong to pull away, so this time he didn't. He noticed that she hadn't either.

"I'm glad you're okay," he whispered into her ear, trying to convey the immense gratitude that he felt about finding her alive and unharmed without sounding like he had been pathetically worrying about her since the minute she left.

She had her head buried in his neck and seemed content to just breathe him in for the time being. "I'm not sure I would say that I'm okay, but I'm alive."

"That's what counts for now. I think it will be awhile until any of us will really be okay."

"I'd like to fast forward to that part."

"Me too," he admitted.

Finally Clarke started to pull back. Bellamy was reluctant to release her, but he did. Their hug had already long surpassed the normal timeframe of a friendly embrace.

There was a long pause where neither of them knew what to say next. There had been very few times in their relationship that they hadn't either been butting heads or working together to prepare for impending war. In a moment of normalcy, it was hard to figure out where they stood with one another. Right now they weren't stubborn rivals or the reluctant co-leaders that the others needed. They were just Clarke and Bellamy—the princess and the janitor.

Clarke spoke first, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity for some social interaction before she sent him away. "How is everyone? How's Octavia?"

"Everyone's…" Bellamy didn't know where to start. He didn't want to say anything that would make her shut him out just yet so he kept it vague. "…fine. Octavia included. She's a little restless from being cooped up at Camp Jaha, but she's good. Both she and Raven wanted to come with me, but I told them that I wanted to come alone."

Clarke nodded. "Is Raven back on her feet?"

Bellamy smiled. "Oh yea. It's been a slow recovery, but the girl is resilient. I don't think anything could keep her down long. Plus, Wick made her a new leg brace so that's helped."

"Good."

Bellamy waited for her to ask another follow-up question, but when she didn't he leaned forward. "Your mom's okay too. I mean it's obvious that she's worried about you and that she's missing you, but she's surviving." He didn't mention that Chancellor Abby was being pressured into making decisions that could get them all killed. He wanted to work his way up to that.

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut tight as he told her about her mom. She could feel her eyes go glassy, but refused to dwell on the feeling.

"Bellamy, I appreciate the update, but you really need to go now."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said simply.

"You can't stay with me."

"I can actually."

"No, you need to go. It's not safe for you to be around me," she protested and then turned to open the hatch to the bunker so she could escape.

He moved to hover directly behind her back so that she could feel the body heat from his presence. He wasn't going to let her get away again.

"Why is that?" he asked.

She wrenched the door open and tried to flee inside, but Bellamy was right on her heels. "Because the people that I care about die," she confessed over her shoulder. "My dad, Wells, Finn…there's a pattern happening. And you could be next."

Bellamy shook his head. "I don't think I have anything to worry about."

Clarke wheeled around to face him, hurt that he wasn't taking her emotional admission seriously.

"I'll be fine...because you don't really care about me. You never have."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "That's not true."

"Be honest. You hated me from the moment we met," Bellamy griped.

"I did, but that was a lifetime ago."

"It was months ago!" he argued. "From the start, you and I have never seen eye to eye and though we may have learned to coexist, nothing you've done tells me that you care."

"After everything you and I have been through together, I don't know how you could even think that I don't care," she replied.

"You can't care _that_ much. You sent me into Mount Weather without even batting an eyelash."

Clarke shook her head in disbelief that she was actually trying to prove that she cared about this pain in the ass.

Bellamy on the other hand was trying to keep a smirk off his face. He was doing his best to play devil's advocate to make Clarke realize how much she cared about everything. It seemed to be working, but Bellamy had to be careful. The more he argued with her, the more he remembered how hurt and angry he actually was. He had been so happy to see her at first that he had forgotten how pissed off he was that she had abandoned him.

"Don't rewrite the past. You volunteered to go into Mount Weather and I agreed."

Bellamy shrugged. "Well, you weren't worried about me _then_ , you can't be that worried about me _now_."

"Of course I was worried! We're partners!" she yelled at him.

"No!" Bellamy shouted, forgetting himself for the moment. "If we were partners, you wouldn't have left me to deal with everything on my own!" He cleared his throat and took a deep breath, trying to regain control of himself.

Clarke looked at him curiously with her head cocked to the side. "Are you mad that I left at all or are you mad that I left _you_?"

He looked up at her. "What's the difference?"

She didn't answer. She didn't have an answer for him because there technically wasn't a difference, but she felt like there was.

The heavy silence that filled the oddly still air of the forest hung over them until Bellamy couldn't stop himself from cutting it down. "I can't remember the last conversation I had that wasn't in some way connected to what we've done or need to do to survive this place." He sighed and stared up into the sky that he once called home. The light blue of the day was being taken over by sharp pinks and purples as dusk settled over the day.

"I'm not the best person to ask, I haven't exactly talked to anyone in a while."

Clarke wasn't one for jokes, but Bellamy could tell by the smile at the edge of her mouth that she was trying to lighten things up.

"What did people used to talk about on the Ark?"

She looked him in the eye and laughed. "They talked about returning to the Ground."

Bellamy shared in her laughter at the irony. "Well, I think you and I are both due for some meaningless conversation." He grabbed the basket she had set down when she first saw him and headed into the bunker without permission. "Let's do it over dinner." He called up to her as he descended the ladder.

"Bellamy, stop!" Clarke ordered when she saw where he was headed. She didn't want him to see the bunker. But of course, he ignored her.

She tried to grab him, but he was too fast and there wasn't far to go.

Bellamy entered the bunker and felt the wind whoosh out of his lungs like he'd been punched square in the stomach. Any hope that he had that Clarke had been able to move on when she left, vanished instantly.

"Clarke…"

"Don't," she said, landing just behind him. She looked down at her feet, not wanting to see the look on his face when he eventually turned back to her. "I don't want to hear it."

Bellamy listened to her for the moment as he took in the décor of the bunker in more detail. Not much about the bunker itself had changed—it was the same small, dark room that he remembered, lit only by the flood of sunlight streaming down from the open door. But the stark room that formerly held just the simple survivalist furnishings was now covered with drawings that Clarke had clearly created. Almost every surface was covered—papers taped to the walls and shelves, disturbing splashes of red and black paint applied directly to the walls, and the most detailed of all was the images in the center of the room that used the stain of Delano's blood as its canvas. The drawings were all filled with death and destruction—of all the terror they had faced since coming to the Ground. There was Wells in his grave and Charlotte tumbling down the cliff and Adam begging for the end. It was never-ending. Everywhere he looked he was forced to face another terrible memory: the 320 victims of the culling falling from the sky or the ash and bones of the incinerated grounders outside the drop-ship.

And then there was Finn, scattered throughout the many drawings, but never as the happy adventurer that Bellamy once knew. In some he was out of control, rampaging on a group of grounders, but in most he was dying either by Clarke's knife or by the original, punishing death that the grounders had planned for him as though Clarke hadn't prevented it.

Lexa was among the pictures too—allowing the missile to destroy her people in Tondc and walking away from Clarke at Mount Weather.

But after all that, the worst of it, the most detailed and disturbing pictures were of Mount Weather. He saw one of himself in a cage, trapped and ready to be harvested. There was Raven and Abby strapped down to a gurney and writhing in pain. And several of his hand on top of her gloved grip on the radiation lever, culminating in the picture set atop the stained blood floor of the radiated bodies of those who died on Level 5; including a slightly larger version of a devastated Jasper cradling Maya's limp body in his arms.

Bellamy finally turned to look at Clarke, swiping away the tears that had unwillingly formed at the corners of his eyes.

"Clarke, you can't do this to yourself," he said, trying and failing to keep the emotion out of his voice.

"I can't help it," she responded, taking a deep breath to stem the tears.

Bellamy held his hand out for her, waiting and hoping that she would take it. She wasn't sure what he was doing, but she knew by the concerned look on his face that he only wanted to help. She took his hand and he slowly pulled her toward him until she was enveloped in his tight embrace. She squeezed him back, happy for the comfort. Once again, Clarke and Bellamy took solace in the knowledge that in the midst of all the chaos and tragedy that followed them around, they could still rely on each other for support.

* * *

 _Please review if you have a chance! Thanks!_


	3. Chapter 3

**Follow the Leader**

* * *

 _Author's Note: Hey guys, I know it's been forever and I'm so sorry! Please enjoy and don't hate me for taking forever. I'm hoping to get the next chapter out real soon!  
_

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The 100._**

* * *

Chapter Three

It felt like hours that Bellamy and Clarke stayed locked in each other's embrace and it still wasn't long enough for him. But he had to say something. "You know this isn't healthy, right?" he teased and was surprised it had the desired effect.

Clarke managed a small laugh before gently pulling away. "Trust me, I know." She picked up the basket of gathered fruits from where Bellamy had set it down and moved it to one of the few unoccupied spaces on the metal shelves. "This isn't exactly what I set out to do when I left." She began pulling different items from the various shelves and piling it up on a small table. She began what looked like meal prep, which seemed like an excuse to keep her hands busy and her mind distant as they spoke. "When I got here, I couldn't get the blood stain to go away – it had soaked too deep into the cement for too long. And so I started to draw to mask the stain. That's what I used to do on the ark. I was in isolation for so long that I would draw to escape. Funny enough, I would draw the Ground—all of the beautiful things I'd seen of it in books."

Bellamy listened intently as he slowly wandered around the room, taking a closer look at each individual drawing. "But I can't seem to draw the beautiful things anymore. Only the bad."

"Then why draw at all?" he asked.

She paused a moment, trying to find the words to explain. "It helps. For a moment. Like therapy, I guess. When I get it down on paper, for a small amount of time I don't have to think about it or be burdened by it. I can get it out of my head."

Bellamy narrowed his eyes. "At least until you surround yourself with the drawings and force yourself to look at them every day."

"I deserve to look at them. To look at them and remember everything that's happened."

Bellamy shook his head and started pulling the paper drawings off the wall. Clarke immediately stopped what she was doing to stop him. "Bellamy, leave them!"

"No!" he growled and held the papers behind his back and out of her reach. "You don't deserve this, Clarke! You don't deserve to be tortured by anyone, not even by yourself."

"Bellamy, just give them back," she said calmly, yet firmly.

"You don't need these, Clarke. Surrounding yourself with all of the terrible shit we've been through will keep you stuck and you'll never move on. You can't hate yourself so much that you would keep putting yourself through this."

"Maybe I do," she replied with a renewed fire in her eyes.

He turned away from her and quickly went back to remove as many drawings from the wall as he could. He wanted to tear them to pieces, but he didn't think she would forgive him for that any time soon and he wanted her to be the one to choose to move forward. He couldn't force her into it. "If you hate yourself, you must hate me too."

"What?"

"I've done ten times the destruction you have. The culling was my fault for destroying the radio to the ark and I pulled the lever at Mount Weather right there with you. So if you hate yourself for making that decision then you must hate me even more." He kept moving, but he could barely breathe as he waited for her to speak. He held up one of the drawings of his hand gripping hers on the lever.

"I've never hated you, Bellamy," she told him. He raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical about how she felt about him when they first met. "Really. I don't hate you."

"Then you need to stop hating yourself. We would all be dead by now if it wasn't for you. The grounder would have slaughtered our entire camp a long time ago and those left on the ark would have known the ground was survivable—I wouldn't have let them know it." He sighed and sat done on one of the beds, gesturing for her to sit next to him. She reluctantly followed his lead. "I was being selfish when I destroyed that radio and it cost good people their lives, but you forgave me." He put his hand on hers and squeezed. Normally he wasn't so casual about touching her, but he had missed having her near him for so long that he didn't care to keep his distance. "You weren't being selfish when you were trying to save our people so you need to forgive yourself. You're too important to allow to just wallow away in self-hate."

She looked up at him. "Of all people, you should know that it's not easy to forgive yourself."

He nodded. "You're right. It's not easy, but I've never known someone who takes on a challenge as fearlessly as you."

"How did you forgive yourself?" she asked.

He took his time to answer, wanting to be honest without discouraging her. "I haven't fully. But I try and move forward every day, remembering everything that's happened and trying to learn from the past instead of dwelling on it."

"I don't know how to do that."

"I won't give your orders, but if I were you I'd start by leaving this place. Come back to Camp Jaha with me and help me make up for the lives that we were force to take by fighting for the ones that you saved."

She pulled her hand out from under his and stood up. "I'm not sure I can do that."

Bellamy nodded. "Then you and I are going to get very cozy here because I'm not going back without you."

Clarke sighed. "I'm not making any decisions right now," she announced and then returned to her food prep station.

Bellamy smiled. He took her response as encouragement. He had expected her to outright refuse his request to return with him. He had to restrain himself from showing her how thrilled he was by her words.

"I'm not asking you to make any decisions right now." He stood up and headed for the bunker entrance. "But I do have an idea that might be a good first step to help you move on. You willing to give it a shot?"

She looked up from what she was doing to study his face. Whatever she saw there seemed to be good enough. "Yea."

"Okay, meet me outside when you're finished," he gestured to the food in front of her. "Just shout out if you need my help."

"I won't need it," she called after him.

He rolled his eyes and left the room. A small part of him thought she might rush to close the door and lock it with him outside. He waited a moment just outside the door, his heart throbbing in his ears. But the door never moved and he had some hope that she was done locking everyone out of her life.

When Clarke carried out a couple of plates of food less than ten minutes later, the sun was already well on its way to setting. That wasn't going to be a problem though because Bellamy had gone about setting up a small bonfire at the center of the shallow clearing. He was throwing on another branch when she approached.

"Are you burning all my firewood?"

Bellamy spun around quickly toward the sound of her voice. He ran his hand through his hair, showing off the soot covering his toned forearm. He cringed. "I'll go out and get you more tomorrow."

"And you're not worried that the fire's going to attract any unwanted attention?"

He sighed. "I'm pretty sure the grounders are focused elsewhere and I'll put it out when we're done."

Clarke hesitated like she wanted to say something—to probe him for more information on what he knew about the grounders, but she stopped herself. Instead she handed him one of the plates and said, "here." before sitting on one of the two rocks Bellamy had dragged next to the fire.

He took it gratefully and sat beside her, quickly making work of the mix of freshly picked fruits and berries and some sparse rations she must have had stored in the bunker. He hadn't realized how hungry he had gotten.

She ate slowly as she watched him devour his meal. It felt strange to eat with just the two of them. They sat together next to a warm fire as the sun set in silence. It was strange, but it felt good to share her isolation with him.

"So what are we doing out here? I'm guessing you didn't set up a bonfire at sunset for the romance of it all," she said and set down her still half-full plate on the ground. She'd get back to it later, but for now her curiosity had gotten the best of her.

"No, it's not for romance, it's for catharsis," Bellamy answered. He reached behind him to scoop up the pile of her drawings that he had held in place by using a smaller rock as a paperweight. "I think you and I should take one last look at the memories that you've drawn here and start to let them go, one by one, by letting them burn."

"Burning them is not going to make me forget anything," she protested.

"I just want you to leave some of it behind you."

She stared into the fire, mesmerized by the sound of the flames snapping and sizzling as they licked the firewood. And Bellamy held back, waiting for some cue that she agreed. He got that when she nodded.

He sat down next to her beside the fire, closer then he intended as his knee naturally brushed against hers when he settled in. He didn't bother to move it away. "Ready?"

"Hand 'em over," she replied and he did just that.

He watched the fire as she slowly fingered through the drawings, wanting to give her some privacy while still being there for support.

It had been several minutes without a word and none of the drawings had become kindling just yet. When she broke the silence, she spoke so softly that Bellamy thought he had imagined it.

"Does he hate me?" she had asked.

Bellamy turned his head to ask her 'who' when he caught site of the picture in her hand. It was one of Jasper. His face was gaunter than the real man and he had a haunted look in his eye. This wasn't the friendly chemist from their early days on the ground. This was the devastated kid they had brought home from Mount Weather.

"He's…I don't know. He's angry still, but not just at you. He's angry at the world. And he still has this air of grief about him no matter what he's doing. But I don't think he hates you."

"I don't believe you," told him. "From the way he looked at me when we last saw each other, he must hate me."

"You're not giving him enough credit. Jasper is a smart man. A part of him knows that he and Maya were never going to end well—they couldn't have. But he thought he was in love and his feelings may still be clouding the truth for now."

"Thought?" she asked, intrigued by his choice of words. "You don't think he was really in love?"

Bellamy ran another hand through his hair as he always did when he was trying to think. He was trying harder than ever not to say the wrong thing, but it didn't seem to matter. He shrugged. "Maybe it's not my place to say this, but yea. I mean he barely knew her. Do I believe he had feelings for her? Absolutely. But I think love is a very strong word."

"Maybe he knew her better than you think," she suggested.

Bellamy laughed a little. "Honestly, how well do any of us know each other? So much has happened that it seems like a lifetime, but it hasn't been that long."

Clarke narrowed her eyes. "So are you saying that I didn't love Finn?"

"Did you?" he asked instead of answering her question. He was uncomfortable with how much he needed to know her answer.

"I don't know," she confessed. "Maybe I could have if we had more time. I can't even remember how I felt about him anymore because every time I think about him all I feel is guilt."

He wanted to put his arm around her and pull her close to him. Wanted to do something to take away her guilt, but he knew it wouldn't help. He couldn't bring Finn back. All he could do was walk the thin line of trying not to make thing worse. "If you want an outside opinion, it was clear to me that you both felt something for each other. Love or not, I know that you truly cared about him."

"Maybe down here that's all that matters." She pulled the picture of Jasper from the pile and pushed it into the flames, letting it crackle and dissolve away into nothing. "We may not have the time to truly love each other the way we used to—to wait for it to build—but we have to cherish whatever little time we may have with each other because our lives seem to go by a lot faster on the ground than they did in the sky."

"You're probably right," he murmured. He let his eyes fully take in the woman beside him. The fire warmed her skin and made her hair shimmer with gold. Her smooth cheeks were flush from the flames, matching the curve of her perfectly pink lips. And then there were those shimmering blue eyes that she directed at him with a spark that he hadn't seen in quite some time.

"Did you just willingly admit that I'm right?" she teased.

He gave her a half-smile. "Maybe."

"I never thought I'd see the day."

"Don't get used to it."

The edge of her lips started to curve upward in a smile, but didn't quite make it all the way when she looked back down at her lap at the picture that now lay on top of the pile. It was the picture of Lexa leaving with her people.

"Have you seen her?" Bellamy asked.

Clarke shook her head. "I considered tracking her down once I left Camp Jaha. I wanted to confront her about how she could betray me…" she trailed off.

"But?" he pressed her to open up more.

"But I know how. She was protecting her people. You and I might have done the same."

Bellamy disagreed. He didn't think Clarke would have betrayed her ally like that. She would have found another way, but he wasn't going to argue with her. She wouldn't see it his way. "Does that mean you forgive her?"

"No, understanding why she betrayed us doesn't change the fact that she did it. I really thought she felt something for me and yet she turned her back on me. Even if one day, I could forgive her, I'll never trust her again."

He scoffed a little. "Do you trust anyone?"

"I trust you," she responded without thinking, but she knew it was true. Somehow the person that she trusted more than anyone in the world was Bellamy Blake.

Bellamy didn't know how to respond so he didn't. He was flattered and honored and surprised. And he trusted her too, but she had to already know that.

Instead, he watched as she fed the fire with more drawings. She started with all of Lexa's and even surrendered a few of Jasper and Maya and Finn to the flames.

Finally, she took a deep breath, inhaling the acrid smoke. Tears stung her eyes—a mix of her emotions and the heat overwhelming her face. She was done looking through each drawing—done surrounding herself with the frozen moments of her tragedies. She flung the remaining papers into the fire and watched them get consumed until there was nothing left but embers.

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 _Please review if you have a chance! Thanks!_


	4. Chapter 4

**Follow the Leader**

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 _Author's Note: Hey guys, hope you enjoy!  
_

 ** _Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The 100._**

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Chapter 4

"That had to feel a little good," Bellamy said, waving his hand toward the fire that was now filled with the ashes of her drawings.

"I wouldn't go that far. I haven't felt good in a long time, but better is relative and appropriate."

He shrugged. "I'll take it." He looked back toward the bunker. "You'll need some new drawings to cover up the graffiti on those walls."

"I told you when I try to draw now, the bad comes out. I've tried to draw something else—something simple or beautiful—but it just gets taken over."

He considered that and held up a finger to make her wait before momentarily disappearing down the hatch. He returned minutes later with a kohl pencil and the worn down sketchpad she had found when she first arrived. She would be out of pages soon, which will be both a relief and a sorrow. He handed her the tools that she had come to love and hate equally. She wanted to love them again.

"What am I supposed to draw?"

He plopped back down beside her, but he turned his body so that he was fully facing her. "Draw me," he said simply.

She rolled her eyes. "I've drawn you before."

"Yea, I saw. You've drawn me in battle and in a cage waiting to be harvested. I'm asking you to draw me now. Draw me happy," he requested with a familiar smirk on his face.

"Have I ever seen you happy?"

He cast his eyes downward. "I was happy when I saw you again." He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the way that sounded even if it was true. "I was happy—or umm…relieved—that you were alive."

"Right," she said. She smiled and brushed her hair out of her face as she started to sketch. "Is this the pose you want?" She gestured to the way he was hunched forward over his knees.

"Tell me how you want me," he suggested.

"Scoot back a little and stretch your legs in front of you." He followed her instructions. "Now prop yourself forward by resting on your hands behind you. And then keep looking at me like that, but tilt your head just slightly toward the firelight."

He complied with her gentle commands, happy for once not to shy away from staring at her.

It didn't take long for Bellamy to zone out completely. The scratching of her pencil to the paper and the warmth of the fire were hypnotic.

He almost jumped out of his skin when she spoke to him. "Tell me honestly: why did you come?"

He blinked hard, trying to wake his mind back up. She was still drawing as she had been before, flicking her eyes back and forth between him and the pad of paper.

"To bring you home," he replied as though it were ridiculously obvious.

"No, I mean, of all people—Octavia or Raven or my mom—why were you the one to come?"

He looked into the fire. "Why do you think?"

"Keep looking at me." She prodded by tapping her pencil against the paper to remind him that she was still drawing.

He leveled her with a glare, but returned to his pose. "You're a smart woman, Clarke. I'm sure you've figured out why it was me." That was the closest he had ever come to hinting at what he felt for her and it was more than he had ever intended to reveal.

"Tell me."

He suddenly realized how uncomfortable his pose had become. His muscles felt stiff and his left arm had started to fall asleep, but he knew he had to say something to Clarke to get her to stop asking her questions. It would only make her more curious if he got up to go to sleep now.

"A part of me thought you would come back to camp on your own at first. But the smarter part knew that you wouldn't." He shifted his balance a bit so that he was sitting up a little straighter and focused his eyes on a spot in the forest just beyond Clarke's head. "You being gone didn't prevent you from driving me crazy like always though. I was doing my best to help hold our people together, but I couldn't focus because I was so preoccupied wondering if you were alive and okay. I didn't know if you were near or far; dead or alive; or just falling apart. And it was killing me that I didn't know you were safe because I lo—…care about you." He finally met her eyes again to find that she had long since stopped drawing.

"Care about me how?"

Bellamy sighed and shook his head. "I don't think you're ready to hear it," he said. He'd had enough. He pushed himself off the ground and started to gather everything that needed to be brought back into the bunker.

"I might be ready." She hadn't yet followed his lead.

"Then I don't know if I'm ready to tell you," he admitted.

She got up then. "I've never known you to be scared to speak your mind." She assessed as she moved toward him.

"You haven't known me that long, princess."

"No," she said, trading him the completed drawing for the plates and utensils that he held. "But I do know you well." She pressed forward on her tiptoes to give him a goodnight kiss on the cheek and then climbed down into the bunker, leaving him to put out the fire.

He watched her go and then turned his gaze to the drawing in his hand. It wasn't the posed moment of him sitting by the fire that he expected to see. Instead it was a rough sketch of Bellamy with his arms around a girl who bore a striking resemblance to Clarke. He had a relieved grin on his face and was clutching her tightly to him. There was a gash on his face in the picture that didn't reflect his current appearance and he realized she had captured the moment when she had practically tackled him in greeting after she first escaped Mount Weather.

He had a fleeting worry that Clarke still hadn't been able to draw a happy moment and that unlike him; she might consider this a bad memory. After all, why draw this instead of just sketching what was in front of her tonight next to the fire? But he shook those doubts away. Even if it wasn't a great memory for her, on the scale of all of her other drawings, this was the happiest one that he had seen.

He carefully went about extinguishing the fire, making sure all the embers had cooled before he returned to the bunker. He pulled the hatch closed behind him and gave a silent thank you that Clarke had lit a candle for him. She was already asleep on the bottom bunk. He quietly stood the drawing up against the wall on the desk, blew out the candle and climbed into the top bunk. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the mattress.

What felt like only minutes, but was actually hours later, Bellamy woke with a jolt. He swung up ready to attack. He regretted not sleeping with a knife under his pillows as he usually did. He jumped down from the top bunk to the floor, trying to make out shapes in the dark. He thought he had woken up because he heard a scream and worried that Clarke had been attacked. His eyes found her in the dark, still in her bed. She was thrashing back and forth, breathing hard and speaking unintelligibly. Bellamy relaxed a bit, trying to calm his heartbeat. It was just a nightmare. He watched her struggle under her blanket, tossing and shaking with now soundless screams.

Bellamy wanted nothing more than to wake her and put an end to the dream, but he remembered what his mother had once told him when Octavia had a bad dream. She said that it was worse for the dreamer to be jolted awake during a nightmare because whatever they were struggling with would remain unresolved in their mind, lying in wait to return for the next bout of darkness when the dreamer was vulnerable to sleep. So no, he didn't want to wake her, but he wanted to help.

He took a deep breath, knowing that this could come back to bite him in the ass if she woke up, but he was going to do it anyway. He sat down at the edge of her bad, careful not to jostle her too much. Her back was to him, but he could feel her violently twitching accompanied by the occasional whimper. Bellamy reached across his body with his left hand to lightly stroke her hair. He placed his right hand on her arm and swirled his thumb lightly along her skin to soothe her. Her movements started to slow, but he could still feel the tension in her body as her mind struggled. He cleared his throat and then began to hum the melody of some lullaby his mother used to sing to him. His low baritone barely filled the small room, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Her whimpers quieted and the stiffness in her body eased ever so slightly.

When he was satisfied that the worst of her dream had passed, he started to ease his right hand from her arm, His song was about to come to its natural end and he planned to return to his own bunk, when he was startled to silence by her arm lifting and reaching for his. She grasped his hand and pulled him towards her, forcing him to either lie in the bed next to her or else strain his back and wake her up. He chose to lie down. His left hand remained stroking her hair and his right arm was draped around her waist, tucked under hers.

"Clarke?" he asked, his voice a barely audible whisper. He wasn't sure if she had woken up and grasped his hand with the need to feel safe after that dream or if she had just reached out for something to hold on to while she was still in the throes of sleep.

She didn't respond.

He spent several long minutes playing with her hair and listening to the sound of her breathing. He thought she might eventually shift enough that he could still extract himself without waking her up. Instead she leaned back into him as if gravitating toward the warmth of his body. He shivered, unsure of how to handle this kind of closeness to her.

He let his eyes fall closed and breathed a sigh of contentment before his mind gave in to sleep.

* * *

Clarke woke up slowly the next morning, which should have been her first clue that something was different today. It was the first time in as long as she could remember not being awoken by a nightmare with a scream on her lips and a pounding in her chest.

She blinked the sleep from her eyes and leaned back slightly to get her bearings. She felt something solid at her back and froze. She looked down at her hand to see it tangled in a larger one. From what she remembered, she had gone to bed alone. When had that changed?

She peeked over her shoulder, careful not to move the mattress too much. She should have startled at how close Bellamy's face rested next to hers on her pillow. It was almost buried in her hair. Instead she felt a comfort that she couldn't quite explain. She had the best sleep she'd had in a long time and she knew that Bellamy being in the bed with her for that was not a coincidence.

She felt a Bellamy rustling behind her as he slowly woke up. She felt his heart speed up where his chest pressed against her back. She felt him try to ease off the bed without disturbing her, but she didn't want him to sneak away without a word. She turned to face him, never letting go of his hand that was still tangled with hers. He froze, surprised by her sudden movement and by the fact that she hadn't shoved him to the floor.

He searched her face for some sign of what she was thinking, but came up short. "I'm sorry," he stammered and pulled his hand from hers. "You were having a nightmare and it was the only thing I could—."

"Shut up Bellamy." She cut off his explanation. She reached for him, tucking her head into his chest and wrapping an arm around his waist.

He hesitated before gently putting his arms around her in a hug.

"And thank you." She murmured into his chest.

He relished the feeling of holding her in his arms for a few minutes before speaking. "This was honestly the last way I expected you to react this morning."

"Would you rather I yelled at you?"

"No, but looking at our history it was the more likely reaction."

She laughed. "If you were the same person you were when we first got to the Ground then you would have gotten that reaction."

"Oh come on. I can't be that different."

She moved her head from his chest so that she could look at him and they locked eyes. "You are. We both are."

He ran his gaze over her face, taking in the steel blue of her eyes and the beauty mark above her lips. She looked almost exactly the same as she did the day they arrived on the dropship. Her cheeks were a little more gaunt and her eyes were a little more haunted, but she was still the strong, natural leader that she had been from day 1.

"I guess you're right," he sighed. "You used to be such a pain in my ass."

She smiled. "Well, I mean that hasn't changed." She sat up in bed and adjusted her shirt to make sure it was covering her stomach. He watched as she gathered her hair away from her face into a loose braid. She climbed over him to get out of bed and went in search of some food.

Bellamy pulled the blanket up over his head and gave a silent groan. He didn't know if he wanted to kick himself for holding onto her for so long or for not making it last longer. He needed to convince her to come back with him soon or she was going to drive him crazy enough to do something that he couldn't take back.


End file.
